Released from prison on Christmas Eve, Maurice Agnelet could only take advantage of it for a few weeks.
His son, Thomas Agnelet, found him unconscious on the morning of January 12, "in his bed", he told Mediapart, which revealed the information on Wednesday.
“He had died in his sleep,” he adds, he who had been joined by his father in New Caledonia shortly after his release.
Maurice Agnelet was convicted in 2014 for the assassination of the heiress of the casino Palais de la Méditerranée in Nice (Alpes-Maritimes), Agnès Le Roux, 29, who had disappeared on All Saints' Day 1977, and whose body no 'has never been found.
The affair had made a lot of noise because it took place in an unprecedented context of "war of casinos in Nice" with, at the end, a story of big money.
At the time, Maurice Agnelet, who was a lawyer and who was once her lover, was close to Jean-Dominique Fratoni, owner of a competing casino.
He has always claimed his innocence.
After having benefited from a dismissal in 1985, he was acquitted in 2006 during a first trial, after the reversal of a capital witness, then sentenced on appeal to twenty years the following year.
Early release for medical reasons
In 2013, the European Court of Human Rights had found that this trial had not been fair, the verdict not having been motivated.
A third trial was therefore held in Rennes in 2014, at the end of which he was again sentenced to twenty years.
In July 2015, the Court of Cassation dismissed his appeal, rendering the conviction final.
At 82, Maurice Agnelet had obtained a suspension of sentence for medical reasons.
His release was delayed by the prosecution, which appealed against this decision, considering that “early release for medical reasons is not justified”.
“In recent times, he had weakened a lot physically, he had health problems, and mentally, he was getting worse and worse.
It is unworthy to have kept it for so long ”, reacted Me Saint-Pierre, his lawyer, recalling the difficult conditions of detention of the octogenarian.